A spending roundup of tight Assembly primaries

Final campaign finance filings were due for primary candidates last week, meaning we now have a (mostly) complete look at the money aspect of the state’s competitive Assembly primaries. 

The New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission reported that, through May 27, Assembly candidates had spent more than $15 million during the primary cycle. The majority of the spending, about $11 million, belonged to incumbents, according to ELEC, with challengers accounting for about $3.6 million in spending.

The lack of a county line gave challengers, many of whom belonged to a slate with Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, a new chance to make a dent against established incumbents. Still, money makes a difference. While campaign finance reports don’t show the complete picture — independent groups can spend significant sums that don’t pop up in a candidate’s ELEC report — but they can still give a sense of the resources a candidate had in the days leading to Election Day.

Here’s a roundup of the campaign finance situations in some of the state’s tightest Assembly primaries:

LD-7:

Assemblywoman Carol Murphy cruised to re-election in the Burlington County-based 7th district, but the race for the second seat was tight between first-year incumbent Assemblyman Balvir Singh and Bordentown Mayor Eric Holliday, the latter of whom ran on Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop’s slate.

Singh held on, beating Holliday by about 700 votes; Singh won 27.72% of the vote, while Holliday secured 26.16%.

Murphy and Singh held a momentous monetary advantage. Murphy spent more than $270k in the primary, while Singh spent more than $130k. Holliday, meanwhile, spent about $35k on the race. Most of that money came from funds raised for his mayoral campaigns; he raised only about $8k in this cycle.

LD-17: 

Piscataway Board of Education member Loretta Rivers nearly pulled off an upset against Assemblyman Joe Danielsen (D-Franklin), finishing fewer than 500 votes behind the incumbent. Still, Danielsen and Assemblyman Kevin Egan (D-New Brunswick) survived, and extraordinarily disproportionate fundraising numbers might have made the difference.

Rivers has not yet filed a final report, but in a report filed in the days before the election, she reported raising just $14k over the course of the campaign (it’s unlikely she brought in loads of cash in the final days before the primary). About $7k, or half of the total, came from donors who gave $200 or less, a notably high small-donor rate.

Danielsen and Egan, meanwhile, collectively spent more than $400,000 during the primary. Egan spent $270k on operating expenses for the campaign, not including in-kind contributions. Danielsen spent more than $150k on operating the campaign, as well as $44k in other campaign-related expenses.

LD-20:

In Union County’s 20th district, Assembly Speaker Pro Tempore Annette Quijano (D-Elizabeth) easily won renomination, but the razor-sharp race for the second seat was won by Eduardo Rodriguez, the former director of planning and community development for Elizabeth. Rodriguez defeated the organization-backed candidate, Union County Commissioner Sergio Granados. 

Rodriguez loaned his campaign $270,000, sending that money to his joint campaign with his running mate, Walter Wimbush. Rodriguez’s solo campaign reported about $61k in operational expenses, but his joint venture with Wimbush spent nearly $273,000 in total.

Quijano and Granados’ joint campaign spent more than $400k on operating expenses — much of that money came from Quijano’s campaign coffers. That joint campaign spending was further buttressed with $64k in operational spending from Quijano’s solo campaign and $11k from Granados’.

LD-28

Assemblywoman Cleopatra Tucker (D-Newark) secured renomination, and newcomer Chigozie Onyema nabbed the second seat, leaving Assemblywoman Garnet Hall (D-Maplewood) in third.

Tucker has not filed a campaign finance report since January, when she reported having a little less than $3,000 in her campaign account. Tucker did not immediately return a call asking for comment.

Hall, who ran with Fulop’s slate of Assembly candidates, spent about $27,500 on the race. Onyema spent more than $53,000 on the campaign and raised about $111k.

LD-31

In the 31st, one of the prime battlegrounds of this year’s Hudson County Democratic War, Assemblyman William Sampson (D-Bayonne) and Hudson County Commissioner Jerry Walker (D-Jersey City), the party-backed candidates, secured the nomination.

They also secured the race’s cash advantage. Sampson’s campaign spent more than $150k on campaign-related expenses, while Walker’s campaign spent nearly $37,000. That doesn’t include money that backed their joint campaign account, including nearly $180,000 worth of in-kind contributions, mostly from the Hudson County Democratic Organization.

The victors vastly outspent their opponents, Assemblywoman Barbara McCann Stamato (D-Jersey City) and Bayonne Councilwoman Jackie Weimmer, who aligned with Fulop’s Assembly slate.

McCann Stamato spent about $138k on the campaign, with $29.5k of the funds coming from donors who gave $200 or less. Weimmer raised about $25k, but spent less than half of it over the course of the race.

LD-32

Housing expert Katie Brennan and Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla took Hudson County by storm when they defeated four opponents with party backing or strong ties in the 32nd,

Brennan raised and spent about $264,000 backing her campaign; about $50k of that was raised from donors who gave $200 or less. Bhalla spent about $240k on campaign operating expenses. The pair also spent nearly $160,000 from a joint campaign account with ELEC.

Bhalla and Brennan’s totals were nothing to sniff at, but they were still outspent.

The Hudson Democratic Organization backed Jennie Pu, the director of the Hoboken Public Library and a PTA president in Jersey City, and Crystal Fonseca, a manager at the Jersey City Department of Public Safety and a former Newark school board member. Fonseca and Pu ran a joint campaign account that spent more than $480,000 on operations, not including an additional $410,000 from the Hudson County Democrats that counted as in-kind contributions. Fonseca also had her own campaign account that spent an additional $152,000 backing her campaign. That’s more than $1 million collectively spent on promoting Pu and Fonseca, who finished fourth and sixth, respectively.

Assemblywoman Jessica Ramirez (D-Jersey City), who ran on Fulop’s ticket alongside Jersey City Councilman Yousef Saleh, spent nearly $200,000 on campaign-related expenses. Ramirez loaned her own campaign $80,000, and about $28.5k of donations came from people who gave $200 or less. (Saleh hasn’t filed a final report, but in a filing in the days leading up to the primary, he reported spending $29k.)

LD-33

Assemblyman Gabe Rodriguez (D-West New York) and frequent North Bergen mayoral candidate Larry Wainstein ran with the backing of State Sen./Union City Mayor Brian Stack, beating North Bergen Mayor Nicholas Sacco’s slate of former North Bergen school board member Tony Hector and former Union City Republican chairman Frank Alonso. The district served as a Hudson proxy war between Stack and Sacco, and there was plenty of spending to go with it.

A joint campaign committee for Rodriguez and Wainstein spent $850,000, not including $260,000 of in-kind contributions, much of which came from Hudson County Democrats. Wainstein loaned $535,000 to the joint campaign account.

Wainstein’s solo campaign also spent more than $85k on operations, and Rodriguez’s account spent about $58k on campaigning.

Though their competitors haven’t filed a final report, Hector and Alonso reported spending $776,668 shortly before primary day. The majority of the campaign’s money, about $640k, came from Hector.

LD-34

Assemblymembers Carmen Morales (D-Belleville) and Mike Venezia (D-Bloomfield) held off challenges from a pair of Fulop-backed candidates, former East Orange Councilwoman Brittany Claybrooks and Belleville Councilman Frank Vélez. Once again, a funding discrepancy may have made a difference.

Claybrooks finished less than 1,000 votes behind Venezia, despite being outspent significantly. A joint account backing Morales and Venezia spent nearly $160,000, with another $80,000 worth of in-kind contributions. Morales’ personal campaign spent another $89k, and Venezia’s solo filings showed another $215k in campaign spending.

Claybrooks and Vélez, meanwhile, kept their spending in a joint account. The pair hasn’t filed a final report, but in the report leading up to primary day, the pair had reported spending about $8,500 on campaign operations, with about another $3k of in-kind contributions.

LD-35

Assemblyman Al Abdelaziz (D-Paterson) won renomination after just a few months in the role, and he was joined by Kenyatta Stewart, the Newark Corporation Counsel and an ally of Ras Baraka.

Abdelaziz’s success didn’t extend to his party-backed running mate, Passaic County Commissioner Orlando Cruz (D-Paterson). In fourth place was former Garfield Councilman Romi Herrera, who ran on Fulop’s slate.

Stewart spent about $165k on campaigning; $31k of the funds came from loans he made himself.

Abdelaziz hasn’t filed a final report, but in a filing in the days leading up to the primary, he reported spending about $105k on campaign operations.

The lack of final filings also applies to Herrera and Cruz; Cruz reported spending a little more than $4,000 by late May, while Herrera reported spending just $79.32 in an early June filing.